


as long as you're learning

by fakeclover



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Grocery Store, Chance Meetings, Crushes, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-23
Updated: 2018-12-23
Packaged: 2019-09-25 06:06:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17115851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fakeclover/pseuds/fakeclover
Summary: Kyungsoo is not in denial about this, he's reluctant. There's a difference between the two, he insists, even if Sehun says it boils down to the same.aka kyungsoo has an awful, terrible crush that he did not ask for





	as long as you're learning

**Author's Note:**

> prompt: Chensoo + they keep running into each other at the store because their favorite youtuber has a cookalong every week and they're buying the same ingredients for it
> 
> 🎨 the fic title is borrowed from bob ross and says 'as long as you're learning, you're not failing' in its entirety
> 
> extended content notes:  
> \- vague allusions to food

Frankly—it's a bold assumption, Kyungsoo chides himself. He still reaches for two packets and fits them onto the respective pile in his shopping cart. This is ridiculous. He checks the note sticking to the cart's handle so he won't miss an aisle and have to go back, pulls on the brim of his baseball cap, pulls it a little further down.  
  
He doesn't know what he's doing anymore, fails to understand—this, whatever this is, and himself, too. The separate piles of products seem to glare at him, judgemental in a way they have no right to be. He hasn't even decided which one is his, but he did make sure the produce in the left pile was the freshest, ripest, most unblemished. This is—utter, pure foolishness; meddling at best, patronising at worst.  
  
Kyungsoo wonders if he should just jostle the cart a little, upset the piles, make them one, his, and live with failing to fit everything into the tiny cupboards, the tiny fridge of his tiny barely-a-kitchen.  
It wouldn't be so bad to cook the same meal twice, he thinks, get more practice, an excuse to rewatch the video for the third or fourth time.  
  
As he ticks the second to last item off the list, Kyungsoo realises his mistake. Even if he showed up now—he would be done with his shopping when he ran into Kyungsoo, in one of the lines at the check-out, maybe, or at the entrance as Kyungsoo was leaving. If he showed up at all; the video was posted yesterday afternoon, maybe he already went right away, didn't even watch it, hated the recipe—  
The embarrassment over his rash plan is so thorough he stills in the middle of an aisle only to be bumped into, hard. Not physically, that is, although Kyungsoo would prefer that immensely.  
  
He can't believe he's so shaken by someone's mere appearance, in a store that has seen better days. There's one of the store's shopping baskets in Jongdae's hand, worn, scratched plastic, empty, a previous customer's receipt still at the bottom. His hair looks a little longer, frames the smile on his face even better.  
  
"Hi," Jongdae says, so painfully likeable, his entire attention on Kyungsoo.  
  
Kyungsoo blanks for a moment. This is only the third time they meet, and it's a disaster. They shouldn't be meeting at all, he thinks. He considers pushing his shopping cart away and running away to never return, or acting like he just found it sitting there, abandoned by its rightful owner. Running is not an option though, his mind supplies. Kyungsoo refuses to do something as unaesthetic as running. He braces himself for the acting, tries to take an inconspicuous deep breath, he can do that—  
  
"Doing this week's cook along, too?" Jongdae asks.  
  
He comes closer to inspect the contents of the cart, and Kyungsoo wishes for the tiled floor to open up and swallow him whole. He's so tired, and pathetic, and so gay, and Jongdae—  
Jongdae has one of the radishes in his hand now, turning it under the light as if it will reveal a secret message if he gets the angle right. His gaze is so fond it snaps Kyungsoo out of his stupor. If Jongdae looks at a radish like that, all sunshine and rainbows, then Kyungsoo is in the radish category, too. Insignificant, that is; an earth-dweller, not meant to cross paths with Jongdae. He has shopping to do.  
  
"I have shopping to do," he says, powerless but resolute, and turns around along with the cart.  
He's upset he has to take a detour—but he's even more upset to find Jongdae leaning over his cart when he turns around from where he grabbed the final item off the top shelf.  
  
"Why are you following me," Kyungsoo says.  
  
Jongdae sets the radish back onto the pile it's missing from. "I think you have something for me," he says, and nods towards the two piles in the cart.  
  
Kyungsoo thinks it would have been appropriate if he winked, but he didn't. There's something akin to hope in his otherwise serious expression, like Jongdae is expecting something from him.  
  
"I just like having a back-up," Kyungsoo says. It sounds weak, and his knuckles are white from how firmly he's gripping the cart. "I mess up the recipes?" he lies.  
  
Jongdae just looks at him, and it's the worst. Kyungsoo feels like he's being dissected by his smile, cut into even more dysfunctional Kyungsoo pieces.  
  
"I won't mess up this time," he relents, "you can take half of it. No, the other one," he adds, a little louder than intended when Jongdae reaches for the top product on the right pile.  
  
"This is so nice of you," Jongdae says as he moves the pile with the carefully picked produce into his own basket. "I forgot to print out the recipe, and I think my phone's still at home, too."  
  
"Anytime," he says, and hates that he means it. He wouldn't watch Jongdae's hands but they're nice hands, and they don't stare back. Also, staring at the phone shape in his shirt pocket would definitely cross the line to rude.  
  
"Actually, I would invite you over to cook together," Jongdae says when he's done, swinging the basket at his side.  
  
Kyungsoo can feel the rejection coming, prays for it.  
  
"But I really need to work on my cooking skills on my own," Jongdae finishes.  
  
"That's perfectly fine," Kyungsoo says, relaxes a little. A half-hearted offer to soften the blow, he knows how it goes. This is for the best.  
  
"Oh," Jongdae says, unexpected disappointment evident in his tone. "I didn't mean it like that. I thought we could—do something else instead. Sorry if I read it wrong."  
  
Kyungsoo wants to say no, he read it correctly. He really, really does.

 

🔪

 

Kyungsoo doesn't stay to watch Jongdae unlock his bicycle, the one with plastic flowers wound around the basket at the front, right next to his own. He trudges off towards the parking deck, finds none of the cars on the ground floor appealing enough to pretend they were his, trudges up the stairs to the first floor. He hopes Jongdae will lose the receipt on the ride home, hopes his handwriting is just illegible enough, hopes a pet or a roommate eat it before Jongdae can stop them.  
  
He's never watching a single video again, he'll unsubscribe from the cooking channel, sell his laptop, cancel his internet, his phone, his electricity too. All of this modern stuff isn't for him anyway, he'll just move to a lonely mountain and spend the rest of his life talking to a flock of sheep, indulge in good old-fashioned one-sided conversation.  
  
His phone pings.  
  
  
_found my phone!! thank you again, i'll make sure to send you a picture of the dish. send me one of yours too! see you next week~_

**Author's Note:**

> imo, kyungsoo doesn't need to learn how to cook, he just likes having company he can pause/unpause  
> ty for reading 🛒  
> please let me know if it made you feel anything
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/fakeclover) | [cc](http://curiouscat.me/fakeclover)


End file.
